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Wolf (& Rabbit!)
569 posts
and
16 followers
in about 10 years
in about 10 years
Reclaiming the past
Over the last few weeks some developers have demolished an abandoned school. I walk past it every Friday and for the last five I’ve come home with the biggest chunk I could carry. I’ve begun milling it into usable boards. The wood is pine and fir but it’s over a hundred years old in a dry warm building.
That’s gone now.
A couple of the beams I saved.
Some of the nails I pulled out.
One of the finished boards.
Waiting to be planed.
Evil, dense, hard pine…who would have thought?
Had to rip it with multi passes with the table saw. The bandsaw just wasn’t up to it.
You can see how the blade said no to cutting that knot. I was lucky the blade didn’t snap. It did jamb.
There you go, a bunch of free wood with a history. I still have two to cut up. The big one is seven feet long.
-- Alec (Friends call me Wolf, no idea why)
7 Comments
What are you going to make with it? Any ideas yet
I’m not sure. I hope to make something that looks as if it came to life a hundred years ago. The fir is beautiful and you could mistake it for cherry. Sadly it’s as soft as cotton candy.
My workshop smells like pine car freshener :)
-- Alec (Friends call me Wolf, no idea why)
Gotta love working with that stuff. It does smell nice.
Losing fingers since 1969
Very cool. I wish i could get some of that wood. Lucky grab but soory to see history disappear.
Jeff Vandenberg aka "Woodsconsin"
Things change and sometimes not for the better. In this part of the world that building woud be considered “new build”, just a hundred years old. Still, it was a cool looking place and a great landmark when giving people directions to our place.
Any suggestions for a “legacy project”?
-- Alec (Friends call me Wolf, no idea why)
Great story. It’s always great to hear where reclaimed wood comes from.
CHRIS, Charlottetown PEI Canada. Anytime you can repurpose, reuse, or recycle, everyone wins!
I’ve been digging around the wood database to see if I could identify this pine. I mentioned it’s heavy. It’s also still incredibly resinous. It really gummed up my bandsaw. Did I mention it’s at least a hundred years old?
I think it may be this:
http://www.wood-database.com/lumber-identification/softwoods/slash-pine/
But it comes from south central US. This is heartland Wales.
-- Alec (Friends call me Wolf, no idea why)
